___

Baack in the day, I first learned of the Del Monte promotion via forum posts (i.e. this one). A surviving LEGO set was found and reported to the community, but there was no consensus on what Del Monte product it was distributed through or when.

Such remained the case for over a decade, as these promotions are a nightmare to track. Fortunately for this case, however, enough has since surfaced to finally be able to answer the questions posed all those years ago, with some room for further research. The following has never been publicly recorded.

The Del Monte promotion began with a mail-away set advertised through Del Monte's juice drinks. It is possible other Del Monte products advertised the LEGO offer. It was distributed both for late-1972 and late-1973 via Ad Service Co. of Denver.

The piece count of the standard set was 125 pieces. Surviving examples appear as such, with boxes usually stamped with '1258' or '1259'. Because the 1973 promotion was assembled with leftover inventory, it is likely it deviates between examples. The first three numbers are the piece count, and the last number is usually understood to denote the retailer or the promotional source.

The shipping label has a return address from Ad Service Co.:

It included this idea card:

Common online is an estimated release year of 1971. This is likely based purely on the form number. Because the preparation was between 1971/72 materials, it is not a very definitive/reliable metric as to which exact season it belongs to. Besides, it only dates the preparation of the sheet, not necessarily distribution. In previous seasons, we often saw Kraft materials prepared before their respective season's LEGO instructions, so it isn't outside of Samsonite behavior. Besides, we have ample evidence as to the timeline now.

A 1971 release is still very well possible for Del Monte LEGO, but not evident and doesn't match what we know (i.e. Kraft introduced the same 125-piece set in 1972, the Del Monte sets we find are all 1972-73 stripped assortments, etc.).

And I say Del Monte sets, I have an image of an example with '#3' on a larger box, which based on what we've seen from Kraft sets, means there were possibly multiple different sets that could be ordered:

But that doesn't mean I'm proclaiming there were indeed multiple sets, just that it is possible. If true, I suspect the label on the can offered the different assortments.

At this time, that is all there is to know.